


Bái Bǎn

by Ryuutchi



Category: No Game No Life - Kamiya Yuu
Genre: As Is Right And Proper, Everyone Loves Shiro, Gambling, Gen, Modern Era, Pre-Canon, Sora's a Dumbass, Yakuza, fucking NEETs, mahjong, or at least low-life punks, why they never leave the house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 13:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17101607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryuutchi/pseuds/Ryuutchi
Summary: No delivery services are working during Golden Week, so the siblings have to venture out into the world.





	Bái Bǎn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreams_In_A_Witch_House](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreams_In_A_Witch_House/gifts).



> Thanks to Zeb for the mahjong help-- all correct mahjong information is his, all mistakes are my own. Also great thanks for making sure the fic was coherent.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy some fluff.

“Dude, adults only,” said the guy at the door. He rested his chin in a hand and watched the pair skeptically. “You can come in, but the kid’s gotta go find an arcade that lets babies in.” Sora looked down at Shiro, who was breathing even harder than he was from their mad dash. He rested his hand on her head, composing his expression into something suitably scornful. 

“We came to play, You’re going to turn down a player just because he’s got his sister with him?” Honestly, they hadn’t come to play but it was a good excuse to get off the street and away from the angry grifters they’d conned into losing at Follow The Lady. Sora could still hear the angry shouts from down the street and hid a wince.

“Sorry, man. Them’s the rules.”

“Nah. Come on, Kaneda, look at her. Infants in arms are allowed.” One of the players leaned his chair back on two legs and grinned towards the entrance. Shiro shrugged and raised her arms. Sora scooped her up, letting her settle on one arm, and against his chest. She rested her cheek on his shoulder, looking sleepy-eyed at the man guarding the door while Sora turned to regard the new speaker.

The guy looked like bad news, in a silky purple button-up that was undone by one too many buttons. Sora groaned inwardly-- the only thing worse than street cons who barely knew how to master a proper Three-Card Monte throw, were punks who thought they were above that because they could cheat passably at mahjong. 

Sora found his bank card and handed it over, letting Kaneda ring him up for a few rounds-- the credit check for larger bets and the way to track them a threat just in the record of the number on his card. The clerk made a face while doing it, but it seemed the other guy was higher up, and he didn’t dare talk back. “You’re at the table with Yamaguchi, then. Good luck.” His tone made it clear he didn’t expect much.

Sora nodded and, Shiro still nestled happily in his arms, made his way over to the mahjong table with their new acquaintance. With a practiced gaze, they sized up the competition. Two elderly gentlemen whose pleasant smiles hid the gleam of card sharps everywhere, and Yamaguchi, whose moderately handsome features were marred by a cut on his lip and a challenging grin. “I’m Yamaguchi, and these are my friends, Furikawa and Syo.” He pointed at each of them and the older men nodded warily in greeting. Pressure rolled off of them toward Sora and Shiro both, even as they gestured toward for the two of them to fill the narrow fourth chair at their game table. “Nice to meet you,” he said, smile sharp at the edges. “But if you’re going to challenge my friend at the front, the only way to play is to take a seat with us. I promise to let your gambling credit get as high as it can go, so you can show off your skills to your sweet baby sister.” He winked at Shiro. Although her expression didn’t change, Sora could feel a wave of disgust roll off her.

Sora cursed inwardly. 『　　』 didn’t lose, and that was both a blessing and a burden. He would never lose with Shiro by his side, but even if he beat all of these men fair and square, guys like this? They didn’t take well to getting swept. He should have thought of that. He couldn’t throw a game deliberately-- that would ruin the name of 『　　』 after all, and Shiro would never forgive him! What should he do?

Meanwhile, Yamaguchi flipped over one each of the wind tiles and shuffled them in the middle of the table, setting them down in a neat row with a series of clicks. “Our new visitor should draw first,” he offered, waving his hand at the tile set. Sora reached out with an easy motion and flicked over a tile. South. The other men did the same, and they shifted in their seats to form the correct pattern. 

Shiro reached up to pap his cheek with her palm. “Nii, focus.” He shot her a wry grin and settled into a chair at the South spot. She slipped from his arm and wriggled her way into his lap, leaning between his arms so she could see his tiles as he drew them. It would be easier to win if she could freely move around, but that kind of cheating was way too obvious for a situation like this. 

So instead, he leaned forward and spread his hands. “Shall we begin, gentlemen?” That earned him a sidelong glance from Furikawa, who of the group seemed most suspicious of their ungainly entrance. Sora smiled, trying to put some teeth into it. 

They began to build their walls, and Shiro reached out to help, her slender fingers surprisingly quick over the old bone set, stacking them carefully in line with Sora’s section.

“Hey, hey! Infants aren’t allowed to play. Only you,” Yamaguchi waved a hand at Sora. Sora nodded amiably and Shiro huffed a quiet sound that only he could hear. He patted her head with his free hand.

“Don’t worry, Shiro. Big brother can win all we need.” He ignored the snorts of disbelief from around the table, looking down at his sister. She didn’t seemed worried one drop, but he felt like reassuring her anyway. Her expression was the same bland expression she always wore, seemingly uninterested in the game other than helping out her older brother. She sat back, fishing out her phone to start fiddling with some unnecessarily pink app. Sora wrapped an arm around her waist, using the other to finish his wall.

Several rounds passed uneventfully, with the players drawing and discarding tiles. Sora stared at his tiles thoughtfully and glanced down at Shiro who was, for all intents and purposes, completely oblivious to the game until she glanced up at the table, eyes narrowing suddenly. Her hand tangled in Sora’s shirt. He didn’t look down at her, eyes skimming over the table. He bit down on his smile. “That’s a bold move,” he said, of Syo’s decision to discard a tile. The black kanji for ‘south’ caught the light, and he glanced back down. It wasn’t unusual to discard an honor tile early when playing computer simulations. Sora’s eyes narrowed and he let a flash of a smile cross his face. He could feel the tension in the room ratchet up a notch and bit the inside of his cheek. He was going to win, but winning here held dangers that he could suss out. The rules for dealing with humans wasn’t the same as the rules to a dating sim or a mahjong game. Sora hated dealing with human beings for just this reason. Their motivations didn’t map onto any game rules he understood.

“Don’t try to be a big man here. Smack talk will only get your teeth knocked out,” Syo said, the first thing he’d said since the pair walked into the building. The old man sucked his teeth and turned to Yamaguchi. “And you! Don’t let a guy bring his kid sister in here. For fuck’s sake, man. That’s all we need, for the police to find out we let a baby in.”

“Like you weren’t suckling at your momma’s titty in here last month, you shit head,” Furikawa responded, grinning so that Sora could see his teeth yellowed by years of cigarettes.

“That wasn’t my mom!”

Shiro looked up at Sora, dismissing the arguing men. “Nii, milk,” she demanded and he laughed. 

“Anything for you,” he said and waved at the guy manning the front desk. “You heard the girl. She has to grow up big and strong.” The punk glowered at him, and Sora swallowed hard, although he forced his game face to stay mildly smug. Shit, shit, shit. He wasn’t some J*Jo character that could stand up to guys like this! But Shiro wiggled in his lap and gave him a hopeful look and he was lost. It didn’t matter how badly he might get beaten, as long as he could make Shiro happy!

“Milk will definately go to my che--“ Shiro started before Sora slammed a hand over her mouth. All he needed was for guys like this to take an interested in his innocent little sister.

Since Yamaguchi seemed just as taken with her as Sora was-- and didn’t that give him heartburn-- the guy at the desk reluctantly stood and made his way to the drinks refrigerator and rummaged around until he found a couple bottles of milk behind the Sapporo. He dropped the bottles on the table by Sora’s elbow. “We’ll add it to your tab when you get cleaned out,” he said and went back to his post.

Brushing off the threat of debt, Sora turned back to the game while Shiro opened the bottles and lay back in his arms to drink. 

For a while the round stayed quiet-- nobody called any open hands off of discards, which was helpful as Sora focused on getting his hand into order. Everyone drew tiles and discarded them, Yamaguchi with that toothy smile, the other two men with poker faces in place. The only sounds were the scrape and click of tiles and the occasional slurp as Shiro drank her milk, watching the game proceed with a thoughtful expression. Yamaguchi’s sleight of hand was more awkward than that of the older mahjong players, but they pretended not to notice and so Sora did likewise. He glanced down at Shiro, whose wriggles meant that she’d gone back to fiddling with her phone. A sidelong glance told him that she was still keeping track of tiles that were being shifted. He smiled at her and she blinked lazily, like a cat, back. 

“Are you always so quiet when you play? I have to admit, you don’t seem like the type,” Sora said, shining his faux-pleasant expression towards Yamaguchi. “Hell, I don’t mind it, but you gotta do more to keep Shiro’s attention or she’ll never learn a thing!” 

Syo and Furikawa both gave him irritated looks, but Yamaguchi seemed willing to indulge him. Or Shiro, as the case actually was. She looked up from her phone, pretending to be more interested in a story about drug dealers than tapping through comfortably pre-determined stat battles with her heavy-hitters deck. 

Yamaguchi lifted his bottle in salute. “So there we were,” he began, launching into a story about some friend of a friend of a friend who bet his own blood on a mahjong game, like a fool. “The rumor says that as he was losing they drained him, so he had to play light-headed-- can you imagine? Bet a pint of blood and then you gotta actually give it up before the hand can be settled? Man! What an intense experience, right?” He finished gesturing and tipped his beer back to drain it. “I can’t fucking imagine betting that kinda shit on a game!”

To his right, Furikawa snorted and drew a tile. “No one in their right mind would bet blood, unless they needed a transfusion or something. That’s basically betting away their life. It’s just a goddamn game.”

“Don’t go telling kids that kind of crap,” Syo added. “It’s way too gory for a brat.”

Shiro had let her phone drop slightly while she listened. If she agreed with Syo, it certainly didn’t show on her expression, which had sharpened in consideration. “Nii, are there sugar snacks?” She asked after a moment. 

Sora glanced at Yamaguchi, who waved over the punk at the door. A moment later, he returned with a bag of konpeito stars and a grouchy expression. Clearly, he was not used to having to work so hard for his pay. Shiro took the stars and popped a couple in her mouth, crunching happily. After licking her teeth clean of the sweets, she held up a handful to Sora, who smiled apologetically to his tablemates and took the proffered sugar. “Thanks,” he said, ruffling her hair again. “You always know when I need brain fuel.”

“Konpeito are efficient,” she responded and ate a couple more herself.You can give your brother all the brain fuel he needs

Furikawa discarded a tile with a click. “Sugar won’t help him win this hand.” 

In response, Sora reached out to claim his discard. “Pung,” he announced, flipping the matching pair of red dragon tiles and taking the discard. He met Furikawa’s glare with the best casual smile he could manage, somehow managing to shove down his terror. This guy could break his nose! This guy could break all this bones! What had he gotten himself into?

The table brushed off the coincidence and, now that Sora had gotten them talking, were a bit chattier. Sora added his own comment when it seemed warranted, but for another round, he let the three older men talk. Their conversations had the air of long litigated arguments, and well-practiced patter. Sora didn’t even have to check with Shiro to know they’d both caught Yamaguchi’s numerous tells. The other two were more difficult to read, although the movement of Syo’s hand before his sudden discard of a 2 _sou_ tile made Sora’s eyes narrow. Yamaguchi picked up the tile immediately for a _pung_.

It was the only indication of wrongdoing for another couple of plays. Meanwhile, Sora let their conversation pass over and through him, keeping half an ear turned towards them in case of an opening. The way they bet told him that Syo usually supported Yamaguchi, but still, he was pretty sure both older men would support the gangster. He grinned wryly and waved at the betting sticks indicating the current pot. “You guys are all so rich! I can only play one hand.”

Yamaguchi laughed. “Don’t worry, kid. We can approve you for a credit check.” Sora laughed sheepishly and shook his head.

The betting came faster, as Syo and Furikawa both announced _pungs_ of their own, taking discards and flipping their tiles, and Yamaguchi took a discarded tile off of Yamaguchi to form a second _pung_. Sora examined his tiles and his opponents, betting conservatively but steadily. Aside from the trio of red dragon tiles in front of him, Sora seemed like a small fry. The big bets flew from Yamaguchi, and his compatriots followed suit.

When the gangster discarded a tile, Sora’s eyes glinted. “Kong,” he announced. Shiro, in his lap, reached out to push over the three green dragon tiles he’d been holding onto, and Sora scooped the fourth from in front of Yamaguchi. It was a risky move-- 『　　』had done worse, but showing off that he’d collected two of the three dragon sets meant that he had to go for a Big Three Dragons or they’d probably be in trouble.

Maybe they were already in trouble. Sora winced at the way the group glowered. He could have held onto the closed _pung_ , and kept looking, but it just wasn’t his way. It paid off when Yamaguchi dropped more betting sticks onto the table. Sora couldn’t help but internally grimace as he matched it with the equivalent of a month’s rent. 

From their the game quieted down again, all of them focused on their tiles and building the hand they wanted. Still, every so often Sora felt the table jump from Yamaguchi’s unsubtle signals. a particularly loud rap on the table leg made Shiro shift in his lap before settling down. Syo made slight hand motions when he was looking for a piece, but Sora just pretended to ignore them. He shifted his tiles around a bit. Now it was just time for the hell wait. If Shiro had set up her tiles properly, all he had to do was settle in until he drew the tile he wanted. Just as long as no one else completed their hand before him. Which meant that every time the other players drew a tile, he tensed, relaxing when no one called their hand.

Syo used a discard to create another melded _pung_ , and Sora chewed the inside of his lip. The betting sticks piled up. 

Sora drew the last tile from his wall and placed it into his set before flipping the whole thing."Tsumo," he said with a quick grin. A pair of one _sou_ tiles and the pair of 3 _pinzu_. Three red dragons, four green dragons, their colorful kanji drawing the eye. But beneath Sora’s fingers, the final tiles he’d kept hidden were blank-- haku, the final of the three dragons. Daisangen. A _yakuman_ hand worth the _han_ point limit.

Furikawa cursed under his breath and Syo bared his yellowing teeth at Sora. It wasn’t impossible to get such a high-scoring hand playing legitimately. But no one at that table had been playing legitimately to begin with. Sora pushed his chair back, grip tightening on Shiro. “Looks like I’m the winner. And I ought to get Shiro here home before our parents start to worry.” A blatant lie. Their parents were somewhere off in Europe and couldn’t spare two moments for their NEET children stuck in a crappy Tokyo apartment.

Yamaguchi was on his feet in an instant and sora swallowed a yelp and stepped back, the chair behind him toppling. “You fuckers! Don’t think I didn’t notice how you never fucking discarded into anyone’s hand! Lying motherfuckers! I would break your legs,” the man said and Sora backpedaled with his hands raised. Yamaguchi’s measured steps were designed to be intimidating, and the aura of menace radiating from him made the blood rush from Sora’s face. A few more steps from Yamaguchi and scrambling backwards movement from Sora had his pressed his back against the wall, head tilted away from the cigarette stink of Yamaguchi’s breath. “But I respect that kid too much. If I cach you cheating in my establishment, I’m gonna break all your damn limbs and throw you in the river,” he finished, sneering in Sora’s face. They both let their gaze drift to Shiro, who had picked up Sora’s chair and sat down, opening up another app. 

“Ah, Nii, F*te/Gr*nd Order’s rate up for N*ro started.” Shiro glanced up at the men as though she honestly didn’t care whether Sora got beaten up or not.

“The super special, limited edition, red bikini in lusty pose N*ro?” Sora yelped and fumbled his own phone out of is pocket. Sure enough, they’d been outside so long, the rate up event had started without him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Don’t you love your poor, neglected brother at all?”

Yamaguchi’s hand dropped to Sora’s shoulder and squeezed painfully. Oh, so this is what it’s like for naturally powerful people, Sora mused before shaking it off and leaning back against the wall again. “You,” Yamaguchi said, “should join my parlor! We could use a guy like you who knows his way around the tiles!” The sneer suddenly lit up into a hopeful grin. It was such a contrast to the man’s previous expression that Sora’s head felt like it was spinning.

“My school won’t let me take a part time job,” Sora protested automatically. As though he ever went to school. As though he even cared what the school rules were!

“Don’t tell me you’re not the delinquent type. I can tell from just a sniff that you skip school.” 

Yamaguchi tugged Sora away from the wall and the boy had no way to fight back. By force of arms he had no way to fight someone like this. “Okay, that’s true. But I can’t swear allegiance to you,” Sora said cautiously.

“And why the fuck not?”

“Because,” Sora looked down at Shiro, “I already have someone who calls me _aniki_.”

Shiro nodded with a quiet “mn”. “I. Already have a nii,” she affirmed.

“Get the fuck out of here.”

* * *

Sora fumbled the keys from his pocket and let them both into the apartment, pressing his cheek against the door as soon as he’d locked it once more. “Your brother can’t take much of that kind of adventure. Next time, let’s just wait until the normally delivery services start up again.” He slid down the door until he was half-sprawled on the hardwood of their foyer.

Shiro stumbled over to put away their groceries and put together the replacement mouse and gaming set up whch had sent them out into the sun-drenched world of Tokyo in the first place. “Mn. Next time, all-ages mahjong.”

**Author's Note:**

> Bái bǎn (白板) or "white board" is the Chinese term for the blank mahjong tile known in English as "White Dragon".


End file.
